"If the coffee is no good, the museum won't be any good." Ronald S. Lauder credits that line to Serge Sabarsky, the art dealer he planned the Neue Galerie with for nearly two decades. Lauder quoted it in May, in a letter published with The Met's announcement that the museum at Fifth Avenue and 86th Street will merge into The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2028. Half a year later, the coffee is back. Café Sabarsky has reopened, and the galleries reopen on Thursday, November 12, with an exhibition marking the museum's 25th year.
The deal moves the building, the collection and the endowment to The Met. Its published terms are built to keep the Neue Galerie of Carnegie Hill as it is: the café, the shops, the staff, a jewel-box museum in a 1914 mansion, and its founder greeting members at the front door.
What reopens Thursday, and what the summer was for
The museum closed on May 27, 2026 for what it calls a multi-phased construction project to enhance its historic building and fortify it for the future. The building is the William Starr Miller House, a six-story Beaux-Arts mansion by Carrère & Hastings. Lauder and Sabarsky found it in 1994, and Annabelle Selldorf led its restoration before the museum opened in November 2001, two months after September 11. Lauder writes that there were lines around the block in those first weeks, and that more than two million visitors have come through since.
For the 25th year, the museum is showing its own holdings. "25th Anniversary Exhibition: Masterworks from the Neue Galerie" fills the entire building with Austrian and German fine and decorative arts, drawn mainly from the permanent collection along with selected recent acquisitions. It runs from November 12, 2026 to January 11, 2027. At the center is Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I from 1907, which Lauder calls the Neue Galerie's Mona Lisa. The exhibition page also lists these works:
- Egon Schiele, Town among Greenery (The Old City III)
- Gabriele Münter, In the Garden in Murnau
- Wassily Kandinsky, Black Form
- Alfred Kubin, Aladdin
- Josef Hoffmann, a 1912 tobacco case
- Marianne Brandt, Tea infuser, Model No. MT 49
Hours from the museum's visit page:
| Days | Hours | |
|---|---|---|
| Galleries, from November 12 | Monday, Wednesday to Sunday | 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., final entry 5:30 p.m. |
| Café Sabarsky | Monday | 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
| Café Sabarsky | Wednesday to Sunday | 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. |
| Book Store and Design Shop | Monday, Wednesday to Sunday | 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
Everything is closed on Tuesdays. General admission is $28, seniors 65 and older pay $18, and members get in free and skip the line. Café Sabarsky keeps modified hours on some event dates.
What the 2028 agreement transfers
The Met and the Neue Galerie announced the merger on May 14, 2026. The plan is for The Met to take ownership of the collection and the William Starr Miller House in 2028, once all necessary approvals are in place. The museum will then become The Met Ronald S. Lauder Neue Galerie, joining The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters. Artnet reported that a Met source said Lauder took his inspiration from the way The Met runs the Cloisters, its satellite farther uptown.
The Neue Galerie's endowment and other assets go to The Met as well. Lauder and his daughter, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer, plan a substantial gift toward an endowment for the long-term care of the building, along with funds for the cost of integrating the collection and building operations. Marina Kellen French, a Met trustee, made the lead gift among several trustees. According to Artnet, The Met aims for an endowment of about $200 million and has reportedly raised 80 percent of it.
The collection also grows. Lauder and Zinterhofer plan to give 13 paintings from their own collection. When the agreement closes, Lauder intends to give Klimt's large portrait Die Tänzerin (The Dancer), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Die Russische Tänzerin Mela from 1911, and Max Beckmann's Galleria Umberto from 1925. Promised later gifts include Klimt's The Black Feather Hat from 1910, along with works by Otto Dix, George Grosz and Franz Marc.
What the agreement is written to keep
The money and the new name are there to keep the museum running much as it does now. The joint announcement says the combined museum will keep showing the collection, keep its programming, and keep welcoming visitors to its galleries, shops and Café Sabarsky. Artnet reported that the staff will stay and the café will remain open, and that The Met's role will be to add research capacity, digital initiatives and joint programming. Lauder will be the first chair of a Special Advisory Board that the two institutions are setting up to guide the change.
Lauder closed his letter, published with The Met's announcement, by saying he would keep greeting members himself.
I will continue to be at the front door, welcoming our members to each exhibition, and I look forward to seeing you at our milestone 25th Anniversary Exhibition this fall.
On Fifth Avenue, the summer's construction was arguably the bigger physical change. The 2028 transfer is a change in ownership and governance, arranged so that the visit stays the same.
Opening week includes a free evening
The museum's free First Fridays are back with the galleries. The first one falls during opening week, on Friday, November 13, from 5 to 8 p.m., and it gives free access to the anniversary exhibition. Two more fall before the show closes, on December 4 and January 8. Entry is first come, first served, so expect a line outside. The visitor policies still apply, and children under 12 are not admitted. The Book Store, Design Shop and Café Sabarsky stay open late on those nights.
Plan around one date. The museum, shops and café are all closed on Wednesday, November 11, the day before the reopening.
Three shows close on January 10 and 11
The anniversary exhibition closes on January 11. At the Guggenheim, two blocks north at 1071 Fifth Avenue and 88th Street, Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now and Collection in Focus | Modern European Currents both close a day earlier, on January 10. The rest of the neighborhood's fall shows run later:
| Museum | Exhibition | Closes | Free or pay-what-you-wish |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neue Galerie, 1048 Fifth Ave. | 25th Anniversary Exhibition | Jan. 11, 2027 | First Fridays, 5 to 8 p.m. |
| Guggenheim, 1071 Fifth Ave. | Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now | Jan. 10, 2027 | Tuesdays and Sundays, 4 to 5:30 p.m. |
| Guggenheim, 1071 Fifth Ave. | Taryn Simon, Father Country I Do Love You | Mar. 14, 2027 | Tuesdays and Sundays, 4 to 5:30 p.m. |
| Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Ave. | Sacred Splendor: Jewish Ritual Art and Christian Treasures from St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague | Feb. 7, 2027 | Saturdays, and third Thursdays 5 to 8 p.m. |
| Cooper Hewitt, 2 East 91st St. | Frederic Church in Jamaica | Feb. 15, 2027 | Daily, 5 to 6 p.m. |
| Cooper Hewitt, 2 East 91st St. | The Substitute, by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg | Feb. 15, 2027 | Daily, 5 to 6 p.m. |
These shows also link back to the Neue Galerie. Sacred Splendor at the Jewish Museum brings treasures from Prague's St. Vitus Cathedral to 92nd Street, the same Central European world the Neue Galerie collects. The Guggenheim's Modern European Currents installation centers on artists who transformed painting in the early 20th century, the same period the Neue Galerie collects. At Cooper Hewitt, Design Across Time, an ongoing show of the Smithsonian's design collection, fills the first floor of the Carnegie Mansion. The Neue Galerie's own decorative arts, from Hoffmann's tobacco case to Brandt's Bauhaus tea infuser, make a natural pairing with it.
On the free hours, the Jewish Museum's Saturdays and Cooper Hewitt's daily hour from 5 to 6 p.m. are available every week. The Neue Galerie's free evenings come only three times before its anniversary show closes.
The way Lauder settled the Neue Galerie's future, through a named successor, an endowment set aside for the building, and terms that spell out what has to stay, is close to the kind of planning Heather Domi Team does with families handling estate and trust sales on these same blocks. If you are weighing what should happen to a Carnegie Hill property in your own family, and when, we would be glad to talk it through. Schedule a Consultation.
